As Trump and the R-Congress continue their attempt to drag this nation, kicking and screaming, back centuries, some in the the Judicial Branch still have something to say about it.
A federal judge ordered that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross sit for a deposition in a lawsuit challenging his decision to add a citizenship question to the Census. The Justice Department had been fighting the move to depose him in the case, which is a consolidation of the lawsuits filed in New York challenging the question.
This is very important because it appears that Ross lied to Congress, when asked whose idea it was to add the census question:
“Department of Justice, as you know, initiated the request for inclusion of the citizenship question. … Because it is from the Department of Justice, we are taking it very seriously, and we will issue a fulsome documentation of whatever conclusion we finally come to.”
— Ross, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, March 22, 2018
That’s his lie to Congress, now here’s the truth:
“I am mystified why nothing have [sic] been done in response to my months old request that we include the citizenship question. Why not?”
— Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in an email about adding a citizenship question to the census, May 2, 2017
We have documentary proof of his lie to Congress.
Now let’s see him perjure himself, and then we can demand he be fired from his Cabinet Position.
See the Judge’s order here
Some history
In less than one month, three federal courts have issued decisions rejecting the Trump administration's motions to dismiss five lawsuits.
The Maryland lawsuit can also proceed on the plaintiffs' claims that under the Administrative Procedure Act, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross — who oversees the census — misused his discretion by adding the controversial question to the census in March.
The largest suit, in Manhattan, was ruled to go forward back in July
More than two dozen states and cities, plus other groups and individuals, are suing the Census Bureau and the Commerce Department, which oversees the census, to get the question about U.S. citizenship status removed from forms for the 2020 census. Judges in Maryland and California are deciding whether to dismiss similar legal challenges.
While U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman has dismissed the plaintiffs' claim based on the Enumeration Clause — the constitutional requirement of a national head count every 10 years — Furman has ruled that other claims in the two cases before him can proceed.
In his opinion released on Thursday, Furman said that the plaintiffs "plausibly allege that [Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross'] decision to reinstate the citizenship question was motivated at least in part by discriminatory animus and will result in a discriminatory effect."
There are signs, Furman wrote, that the Trump administration officials "deviated from their standard procedures in hastily adding" a question about citizenship status, which the Census Bureau has not asked all U.S. households about in close to 70 years.
And that same Judge Jesse Furman has ruled that Wilbur Ross must now stand for deposition, for no longer than four hours, in the census question lawsuit. One wonders what other possible legal basis the Commerce Secretary will put forth for adding this question.
“In short, it is indisputable — and in other (perhaps less guarded) moments, Defendants themselves have not disputed — that the intent and credibility of Secretary Ross himself are not merely relevant, but central, to Plaintiffs claims in this case,” Furman said, later adding that the challengers had also “demonstrated that taking a deposition of Secretary Ross may be the only way to fill in critical blanks in the current record.”
The judge also said that “there is something surprising, if not unsettling, about Defendants’ aggressive efforts to shield Secretary Ross from having to answer questions about his conduct in adding the citizenship question to the census questionnaire.”
Furman’s order limited a deposition to four hours. It is likely that the Justice Department will appeal the order.